I do not understand where this idea has come from. Can you please elaborate?

Prices on CPU's come down...not go up?

I've never seen 1000 lot prices increase after initial inception of a product, especially not 6-months to a year later.

JC

It's very simple.

Intel will literally have a monopoly if AMD dies (not physically though. IBM still makes chips)

If they are the only ones in the consumer processor market, they can dictate the prices at whatever they want to and people will buy them. The higher the prices, the higher the profit margin, and without any competition, they have absolute control over prices.